Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Kirby Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Yes—a very good prompt from behind me. There are just around 100 civil servants working on the programme and I am delighted that they are, because I am convinced that helping idealistic figures, such as Peter Hyman and Sajid Hussain, a state school teacher who is setting up a school for disadvantaged students in Bradford, is a good thing. We are bringing schools to the areas of deprivation let down by the hon. Gentleman and his party. Instead of civil servants having their time diverted to the sort of politically correct projects that preoccupied the Labour party, at last they are concentrating on driving up standards for the poorest, and I am proud that it is the coalition Government who are doing it.

[Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State join me in welcoming a number of potential free schools in my constituency, which he knows well, including one that plans to offer a bilingual education and one that plans to help very deprived young people in different areas?

[Michael Gove]

I am delighted not only that there are free school applications from Brighton, Kemptown, but that Brighton college is playing a part in helping to establish a new free school in the east end of London which is setting out specifically to target talented children from poorer backgrounds. When that is combined with the innovation being shown by the Durand school in Brixton, for example, which plans to establish a state boarding school for disadvantaged children from that area, I have to say that the coalition Government are unleashing a wave of radicalism the like of which will not have been seen since 1944.